Welcome to the
White Chalk blog tour! Today we have a guest post by the lovely Pavarti K. Tyler, an excerpt, and last but not least, a giveaway! So, be sure to go all the way to the end, check out all the goodies, and sign up for the giveaway! Let's start with some quick info about the book itself.
BOOK INFO
Chelle isn’t a typical 13-year-old girl—she doesn’t laugh with friends, play sports, or hang out at the mall after school. Instead, she navigates a world well beyond her years.
Life in Dawson, ND spins on as she grasps at people, pleading for someone to save her—to return her to the simple childhood of unicorns on her bedroom wall and stories on her father’s knee.
When Troy Christiansen walks into her life, Chelle is desperate to believe his arrival will be her salvation. So much so, she forgets to save herself. After experiencing a tragedy at school, her world begins to crack, causing a deeper scar in her already fragile psyche.
Follow Chelle’s twisted tale of modern adolescence, as she travels down the rabbit hole into a reality none of us wants to admit actually exists.
Title: White Chalk
Author: Pavarti K Tyler
Publisher: Evolved Publishing
Publication Date: July 22, 2013
ISBN Paperback: 9781622532988
ISBN Ebook: 9781622532971
Audience: Adult
Genre: Literary Fiction
SubGenre: Coming of Age
Pages: 250
Distribution: Ingram
Here's the excellent Guest post!
Puppy Love or Obsession
I’ve written posts before about the first boy I fell in love with, the sweet wonderful boy who kissed me shyly on my bedroom floor after declaring his adoration for me. I’ve also written about the amazing man he’s become and how proud I am to call him friend.
This post is not about him.
This post is about the boy who came before him.
I sat in the auditorium of Summer Art Camp (yes, I’m a nerd) and across the isle, 5 or 6 rows in front of me, sat another boy. Tall and lanky, his black booted foot extended into the aisle almost daring someone to walk by and trip. His hair was blond with the back and sides shaved. It hung down over his face, hiding his profile from my view. He wore black jeans, a tight black t-shirt and a mocking smirk. When he walked by me to leave the theatre the scent of clove cigarettes wafted behind him.
I whispered to the girl sitting next to me “I’m going to fall in love with him.”
The camp was a busy place with hundreds of kids taking classes in acting, music, ceramics, set construction, and any other practical art skill you can imagine. Through the crowd I watched for his thin frame. I rushed from class to class, scanning the hallways, desperate to capture a glimpse of my punk rock Adonis.
I don’t remember the first time we talked. It may have been a class we had together, it may have been lunch. What I do remember are his piercing blue eyes, his sardonic smile and the defeated hunch of his shoulders. I remember the first time he took my hand in his. I remember the feeling of his lips against mine and the taste of cloves.
I began listening to his music, reading his books, hanging on his every word and repeating them to anyone who listened, like I was the mouthpiece of God. In retrospect, I was never very good to him. I didn’t listen to what he said, I didn’t see him. I worshiped what he represented, rebellion and something all my own.
Over the years we continued to date on and off but never so much I would call him my boyfriend. And my blindness to the person beneath all the affect meant I inadvertently hurt him over and over. Because adoration and obsession are not love.
To love someone, you had to invest in them. Their faults and their flaws, their secrets and the soft underbelly of insecurity they show only to you. And in exchange you have to openly display your own weaknesses. The strength of love comes hand in hand with its terrifying vulnerability.
So the thin boy with the beautiful lips was not my first love. He’s one of my few regrets though. In his own way, I believe he loved me. He was a good friend, a solid presence who over the years never let me down. He held me when I cried over other boys, kissed me when I flirted and always wanted me. Not the me I pretended to be, the real me. He defended me, always showed up when I needed him. In many ways, he was my knight in metal spiked armor. He even stupidly threatened to slash the tires of someone who was mean to me.
I wish I could have loved him the way he deserved, but it wasn’t meant to be. We weren’t lined up for that: apples and oranges and so forth.
The character Troy in White Chalk is in a small part modeled after this boy. Certainly some of his physical characteristics are. The opening lines of the book introduce the reader to the object of Chelle’s adoration.
Troy Christiansen came for me.
I knew it the moment he first walked into Northwoods Secondary School. I watched, transfixed, as he glided right through the crowd of popular kids who hung out by the front door—like someone used to being ignored, slicing through the crowd like a ghost. He had a black Mohawk pulled tight into a ponytail, and smelled like cigarettes and delinquency. A black t-shirt and long-sleeved hoodie clung to his hunched shoulders.
Something about him looked so perfectly fragile.
He looked up only once and, by the smirk on his wide full lips, I knew I’d been caught staring. It didn’t really matter. I’d fallen instantly and obsessively in love, but not the kind of teenage drama crap you might expect. No, this was the real soul-wrenching kind of love. I’d never be the same again.
I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if her feelings for him are obsession or love.
About Pavarti K. Tyler
Award winning author of multi-cultural and transgressive literature, Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother
and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway. Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry several international law firms. She now lives with her husband, two daughters and one very large, very terrible dog. She keeps busy working with fabulous authors as the Director of Marketing at Novel Publicity and penning her next genre bending novel.
White Chalk (Evolved Publishing) marks Tyler’s third full length novel and promises readers familiar with her work the same mind bending experience. Her other projects include: Shadow on the Wall (Fighting Monkey Press) and Two Moons of Sera (Fighting Monkey Press). Shadow on the Wall has been received many awards: Winner of the General Fiction/Novel Category of the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Winner in the Fiction: Multicultural category for The 2012 USA Best Book Awards, and Finalist in the Multicultural Fiction category for the 2012 International Book Awards.
White Chalk has been hailed as “brave”, “raw”, and “destroyingly beautiful”. In line with novels such as White Oleander, Thirteen Reasons Why and Gemma, White Chalk invites you to witness one girl’s heartrending story of confusion and desperation.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Here is an excerpt, so you can have a bit of feel for the book. I also thought this particular excerpt fit really well with the guest post.
Excerpt 3
Class oozed by. The assignment proved easy, but waiting for the inevitable knock on the door, or ring of the teacher’s phone, made the seconds expand exponentially. By the end of the period, I’d half convinced myself I should just go to the office and surrender, admit everything that happened and beg for leniency. But when the bell rang and the frenzy began to herd ourselves into the cattle drives called hallways I had mostly regained control of myself.
Except I never realized that the computer room was in the same hallway as high school English, and I didn’t know that Xiu and Troy were in the same class for fourth period. And I certainly didn’t have any clue about what greeted me when I walked out of my classroom.
Xiu leaned against the wall, its puce green tile doing nothing to diminish her exotic beauty. A languid smile played on the corners of her lips as she tilted her head up, listening to whatever perfectly fascinating thing Troy said.
He had one hand on the wall next to her head, his backpack dangling without fear from his shoulder. His other hand reached up grazed her cheek with the back of his fingers.
Her deep red lips parted in anticipation. Soft almond eyes drifted closed as she stretched her neck to meet his incoming kiss. His hair, pulled back in a dark stripe along the top of his head, shone in the florescent light of high school as he took her lips in his.
I dropped my bag. Stumbling back, I almost tripped over it. I fell along the linoleum floor until my back leaned against the cool tile. Speckles of light shone in my eyes while bile rose in my throat and a wrenching aching heartbreak shook through me, threatening to knock me down and steal my kidneys, selling them on the black market. They weren’t any good to me anymore. Who needs kidneys when your heart’s been removed with a grapefruit spoon?
RESOURCES FOR WHITE CHALK
Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide: The mission of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide is to reduce the number of youth suicides and attempted suicides by encouraging overall public awareness through the development and promotion of educational training programs for teens, parents and educators.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Since its inception, the Lifeline has engaged in a variety of initiatives to improve crisis services and advance suicide prevention.
S.A.F.E. ALTERNATIVES®: Our philosophy begins with the assumption that, although temporarily helpful, self-injurious behavior is ultimately a dangerous and futile coping strategy which interferes with intimacy, productivity and happiness. There is no “safe” or “healthy” amount of self-injury. We also believe that self-injury is not an addiction over which one is powerless for a lifetime, people can and do stop injuring, with the right kinds of help and support. Self-injury can be transformed from a seemingly uncontrollable compulsion to a choice.
Self Injury Outreach and Support: As part of a collaboration between the University of Guelph and McGill University, we are a non-profit outreach initiative providing information and resources about self-injury to those who self-injure, those who have recovered, and those who want to help.
EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESS RELEASE
Baltimore, MD – Evolved Publishing is thrilled to offer the latest work from local author Pavarti K. Tyler, White Chalk, hitting bookstores everywhere on July 22, 2013.
White Chalk has been hailed as “brave”, “raw”, and “destroyingly beautiful” focused on issues of poverty, sexual abuse and self harm. In line with novels such as White Oleander, Thirteen Reasons Why and Gemma, White Chalk invites you to witness one girl’s heartrending story of confusion and desperation.
Finally,
the giveaway, and be sure to check out the other stops on the tour so you can enter there as well!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Blog Tour Stop
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Type of Stop
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Date
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Top Ten
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7/21/2013
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Guest Post - Puppy Love or Obsession
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7/22/2013
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Review
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7/23/2013
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Interview
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7/24/2013
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Guest Post -
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7/25/2013
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Review
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7/26/2013
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Playlist
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7/29/2013
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Interview & Review
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7/30/2013
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Writers Wednesday
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7/31/2013
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Review
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8/1/2013
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Guest Post
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8/2/2013
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Guest Post - Review
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8/3/2013
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Valerie Douglas is the multi-published author of novels of fantasy, mystery, suspense and romance, among them,
